by T. A. Grey
Hanna bit her lip. The idea sounded fine but she didn’t like the idea of agreeing to murder on Gavin’s behalf without him speaking for himself. She shook her head. “But we can’t agree to that plan. Gavin isn’t here to make that kind of deal for himself. He might not agree to murder.”
Alex held up his hand to quiet her. He had a hard look in his eye. Hanna didn’t like that look, it made her stomach queasy.
“We’re in agreement,” he said. “Xavier dead. Hanna and I are spared to leave.”
“But, but, but,” the queen held a finger up in the air. “If you die in the escape that is not my problem. The plan is void. I will find other ways to remove Xavier from my life. So try not to die out there. Here, this might help you.” Queen Lysette pulled a golden sack from within her dress. Hanna caught it and stuffed it into her makeshift satchel. Inside she found some basic supplies, a silver knife and some medicine.
“Now make haste and leave. Before someone finds you here. I will do what I can to hold them off.”
Alex palmed a key and stuck it in the ignition--it turned and the snowmobile roared to life.
He looked back at Hanna and grinned. She almost rolled her eyes at his devilish behavior. “What are you smiling for?” She was terrified while he looked to be having fun.
“I will provide a distraction. I would use the opportunity wisely.” The queen deftly and quietly snuck back out the door she came.
“Get on, babe.” He mounted and she slipped on behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding tight.
“She better make a good distraction.” Hanna bit her lip in worry.
Alex chuckled. “You’re gettin’ feisty babe. I like it.”
“Feisty?” She almost laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Besides, you’re one to talk. I don’t know how you’re acting so casual about all this. We could die when they see our faces driving across their pack in a damn snowmobile. They have guns with real silver bullets meant to kill us! Plus we don’t even know where we’re going. They know their own land, Alex!”
More chuckles. Wasn’t this all just a grand ole’ time? “Now don’t go getting yourself all worked up.” He squeezed her ice-cold hand reassuringly. “Remember, I haven’t lived the kind of life you have. This isn’t the first sticky situation I’ve been in. Hell, it ain’t even the first escape attempt I’ve had to make in my life.” He flashed her a grin. “And it probably won’t be the last.”
Shaking her head with disbelief, Hanna found a strange comfort in Alex’s admissions from his dangerous life. He did know how to jimmy a lock. And fight using his fists. And chop wood, apparently. “You’re saying you’ve had to escape from a hostage situation more than once in your life?” What other interesting things didn’t she know about?
He shoved open the rear barn door enough to they’d be able to fly straight out. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Now, hang on sweetheart, we’re about to go for a ride. Just imagine we’re back home and you’re riding on the back of my motorcycle.”
“Yeah, right.” She sounded doubtful.
Then, out front, she heard a shout. A woman’s voice squealing with utter terror.
“It’s the queen! She’s naked! In the snow!”
Ah, so that’s how she was going to distract people. By getting naked in the snow. What an unusual idea. Hanna found herself grinning. She must’ve looked completely nutty, but she was smiling like a fool.
Alex revved the engine then sped off in a flurry of snow. No countdown. No way to prepare herself for the adrenaline rush about to consume her. It just happened. A flashing surge inside her that made her heart thump loudly and her blood pump on overdrive. The wind whipped at her face with chilly fingers. Her breaths were cloudy from the icy temperature. The engine sounded so loud, surely alerting everyone to their passion, and she was so scared she simply squeezed Alex’s waste as tight as she could and held on for dear life. Waiting for the moment where a bullet would shred them both to pieces.
An unmistakable sound. The trollop of horses...getting closer. Hanna held tight to Alex’s waist as he navigated them into the forest and through thick brush. This was no clear path; they had to maneuver around tight splotches of tree and rock. She peered over her shoulder and pulled on Alex to alert him. He peered at the incoming guards--four of them on horseback--snow kicked up in a whirl of white dust around them. They charged towards them with ferocity in their eyes.
Alex said not a word. He simply cranked the handle back and pitched them forward into the dusky evening. Night growing, the cloudy, gray sky getting darker as the sun drifted beneath the horizon.
They were pulling away, gaining footing! Hanna’s heart surged. Yes, they could do this. They could actually do this! Hope warmed her freezing bones.
A strange noise. A gentle whistling that stirred the air. It came again.
“Huh?” What was that?”
Alex never heard her question over the sound of the engine.
“There it is again!” she said.
Alex finally heard her. But, too late, she found out what it was. Hanna cried out in pain, her body slumping against Alex, a wet sensation drizzling down her spine. She saw something whiz past her face, clearly enough so that she could see. An arrow. She’d been pierced in the back by an arrow. She could feel its long length bobbing from her back.
“Hanna what’s wrong?” he shouted, performing a series of maneuvers around a valley of bushes. He was trying to choose paths where the horses would have a harder time following them. But the bumpy path jostled her roughly. She cried out in pain.
An arrow was stuck in her damn back and the arrowhead was pure silver. Her skin burned and sizzled around it making her sweat and twitch, back arching and undulating. “Oh god it hurts!”
His body stiffened. “Hold tight,” he warned her.
She thought they’d been going fast before, shed’ been wrong. Alex drove like a wild man, the vehicle dipped hard and when her grip nearly started to waver, he suddenly latched onto her arms at his waist and pulled her tighter. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.
Hanna felt the deceptive warm fluid trickling down her back. Blood, no doubt. She couldn’t turn around to see it. Her muscles began to tremble and twitch, like acid was burning her through to the bone. Her teeth chattered, not just from cold but shock.
“Hold on, sweetheart. Hold on,” he kept saying.
She stared off into the night, her cold cheek plastered to his back. Every single breath she took hurt, jostling the injury. After a while, she closed her eyes and simply held on.
Chapter TWENTY-THREE
The horses had fallen back, caught up in the heavy forest unable to maneuver as well as she and Alex did on the snowmobile.
She was so cold. No gloves on her hands. Her fingers were stiff with pain, hurt to move them. Bones creaked like old furniture. The only heat she felt was where her chest was pressed against Alex’s back. The arrow hung out from her back, every bobbing move they made, moved it, ripping her skin open further.
The snowmobile suddenly spurred to a halt, Alex killed the engine. He carefully stood and caught her, because she nearly toppled forward, unable to stop herself from falling.
“Alex, I don’t think I can move.” She didn’t know how else to say it. She felt terribly, deeply cold. Teeth chattered, her body trembled, legs were stiff, unbending boards of timber.
“I’m gonna help you up now. Careful, careful.” His words were gentle, so was his touch. “Wait, wait. Let me look at this.” He whistled beneath his breath. “You got an arrow in your back, princess.”
She chuckled at his nickname for her, then winced as that only jostled the arrow. “Yes, it hurts. Can you take it out, do you think?”
“It’s in a few inches. I ain’t no doc, though. However, I think it’d be best if we dispense with it. It’s gonna be hard to move from here on out with it in.”
Without the roar of the engine, Hanna’s hearing began picking up the natural sounds of the wood
s. The snow seemed to dampen sound, creating a hollow echo to everything.
“Ok,” she agreed. “Take it out.”
Alex leaned down to whisper in her ear. “You got this, baby girl. Now hold tight.”
Hanna’s cold, unbendable fingers cracked as she gripped the steering handles for support. Amazingly, a bead of sweat spilled down her temple. The area around the wound burned to high hell. It fucking hurt like a son of a bitch.
“You ready?”
“Just do it. Rip it out.”
Hanna’s staccato breaths were loud. Not nearly as loud as her scream, as Alex grabbed the arrow and yanked it out. She half-leapt off the snowmobile, her legs kicking, hands tugging viciously on the steering console.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said gently. “It’s out, princess. You did it. You did great.” He rubbed circles around her back, something that created little pinprick sensations of heat and comfort.
Hanna shook her head, staring blindly at the snowy-moonlit landscape, sending tears flinging from her eyes. Alex’s hand stilled. She could feel the tension in him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. She managed to stand the best she could, but she had to hunch over rather far to keep the wound from feeling pulled open and taut.
Alex gazed off into the distance with a hard look on his face.
“What is it?”
For a moment, his eyes glowed, the lykaen rising inside him. “We have to go. There’s no more fuel in the snowmobile, we’ll have to go on foot from here”
“I don’t know how fast I can move, Alex. I’ll do my best.”
He shook his head once, still not having looked at her. “We have to go. Now!”
Her breath caught, for she heard it then, what he’d already heard. The sounds of horse riders.
A horse whinnied. Not far away. Hanna gazed to her left, followed Alex’s line of vision, and her breath caught. No, please god, no.
They were here. Rifles drawn. Horses leaping over fallen, snow-covered limbs, slipping over the rough, rocky terrain.
Alex cupped her cheeks and turned her to face him. “Do you trust me?”
“Do I trust you?” God, he had no idea how much that question hurt. It paralyzed her.
“Yes, do you trust me, Hanna? Because right now, I need you to.”
Did she trust him? She knew unequivocally the answer.
Softly, she answered him. A quiet sound slipping forth unnoticed. “Yes.”
“I’m going to carry you. There’s a river not far from here. Do you hear it?”
“A river? All I can hear is those horses.”
KA-POW!
“And that gunshot!” her voice rose in panic.
Alex wasted no further time; he bent over and scooped her up. She wrapped an arm around his neck and whispered an apology for being so heavy. He scoffed but said not a word, as he took off towards that running water, running away from the guards chasing them. Would they ever stop looking for them? Would her life ever be the same after any of this? It couldn’t be.
Alex breathed hard as he tore ass through the woods. Another gunshot cracked into a tree, splitting it open in an explosion of wooden bits. “We have to cross the water.”
She held on tighter. “Are you sure? It’s so cold, Alex...it’s too cold to cross.”
She was already so very cold. She took a good look at the water. It was a heavy, rapidly moving stream. She could see rocks through the clear surface, but in some parts it was easily four feet deep or more. “You can’t carry me across. Put me down and I’ll go alone.”
“Like hell,” he cursed.
“There they are! Kill on sight, you heard the orders!” A horseback rider shouted.
A rifle-round fired. Hanna’s hearing deadened-turning into a high-toned ear ringing that vibrated in her right ear. The gunshot came that close. A hairs-breadth from her skull.
Alex held her tighter. Then, without a word, he charged into the water. It stunned even him and he froze for several moments. Hanna held tight to his neck, gazing up into his face.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t possibly do this.
The water crawled up his legs. How cold it must be. Numbing, strength-sapping cold.
His arms began to shake holding her. But then, Hanna had to do a double -take. Did she see what she thought she just saw?
Alex with glowing eyes. She sucked in a stunned breath at what she was witnessing. The beserking he’d talked about. A lykaen’s true nature. So shortly tapped, if one could even garner the strength to use it. She’d never truly seen it before, had only heard stories from soldiers in the pack talking about it.
He raced through the river. It dampened up to his knees, then to his upper thighs. The river was some twenty feet across, not too far. But the horseman were nearly to the river’s edge, rifles lined up to take shots, but buoyantly baying horses made taking shots difficult.
“Hurry,” she said.
Alex opened his mouth and roared--a sound she’d remember for the rest of her life. A fight-for-your-life sound that brought goose bumps across her skin and made her heartbeat stutter at the power in the sound. A lykaen’s war cry.
He plowed through the icy water, renewed grip on her body. But, she felt something give, his foot slipping on something in the water. He lost his balance and she felt herself careening towards the icy water.
She hit the water with a splash. The cold went down her nostrils, down the back of her throat, stunning her. She burst towards the surface, spewing water from her lungs, coughing violently. The water was heavy, like a wet, wool blanket and so quickly it started pulling her along with its icy hands. Grabbing her, taking her away from Alex. Tremendously powerful, the rush of it surging downstream trying to take her with it.
“Alex!” she screamed, raising her hand toward him. He’d just finally gotten his bearings. He spotted her drifting away from him, and once again she saw the lykaen inside him.
He ran through the water, completely obvious to its temperature. He picked her up, her wound re-opening and bleeding down her back. He made it through the river, but didn’t set her down.
Her breaths fogged the cold air. “Sooo c-c-c-cold.” They were both soaked. They wouldn’t servive in the wilderness like this.
Alex took them deeper into the woods and out of sight from the horseman. He looked back, hands surprisingly steady as they held her effortlessly. “Good. The horses won’t cross the cold water. We have to hurry.”
Hanna’s last impressions was that of looking up into Alex’s face. The gruff beard growing on his cheeks looked soft in comparison to the hard edges of his face. Doubts and regrets filled her head. Worries over this entire situation and how they managed to be in it.
“I’m so sorry, Alex.” She hated how weak she was, hindering him. “You can leave me. It’s fine, it’s what I deserve.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be silly. I’m going to get us o-out of here.”
Even his words were stuttering from the cold. His clothes plastered to his icy body. She swore he looked visibly paler. One-step closer to death.
“Alex, I don’t want us to die out here.”
The truth of her words stung. The honesty in them branding her with shame stemming from her fears. Her pitiful, stupid fears of death, of being wrong, of being the cause of everything. Stupid, stupid Hanna.
“We’re not gonna d-d-die out here. I promise you that.”
“A helluva p-promise. Can you keep it?” She tried to laugh but she hurt too much. Instead she curled as close to Alex as she could, shaking like a wet dog.
“I’m gonna try, princess.” He shivered violently.
Poor man.
“Well that’s all you can do I sup-p-pose.”
“Hanna? HANNA?!”
She heard Alex’s shout, but her eyes needed to close for a little while. His voice sounded faint and faraway as if he was on top of the roof and she stuck in a basement. She was just so tired from all the running. Being scared sapped her strength.
Yes, she would close her eyes. Just for a little while. Then, maybe, everything would be okay.
* * * * *
Hours after the two prisoners escaped, Broderick returned back to the castle from leading the initial charge on the escapees. Xavier Carbon was losing his mind. This was not going according to his plan. He also had publicly deemed Queen Lysette a “lunatic”. She’d been found outside the barn frolicking naked in the snow and creating quite a stir. Broderick, too, had found her antics unusually. Even for her. It hadn’t been until after they’d rested control of the queen, that Broderick himself had searched the barn and found the missing snowmobiles and the tracks leading into the forest. By time he called it in and sent out a search party, Alex and Hanna had a clear nine minutes ahead of them.
Things were tense. People weren’t talking much, not looking the other in the eye. With Xavier acting how he was, there were whispers and fears rumored that he’d overtake Lysette’s throne. Now people were beginning to fear pissing off Xavier, thinking he may wind up the new king shortly.
Yeah, right. Broderick wouldn’t allow it. Over his dead body. Lysette had worked too hard to get to where she was, and she loved this pack; it meant everything to her. More than even, possibly, Remi did. Now Xavier was threatening that position? Things were about to take an ugly turn for the Gerioux pack.
Broderick entered the queen’s private room--a place that very few knew about. Lysette was waiting for him. She was dressed at least.
“Thank you for coming.”
He nodded. “Of course, my queen.”
“Xavier intends to steal my kingdom from me.” A pale hand grappled with the drape of her gown. “I’ve allowed Monsieur Thompson and Mademoiselle MacKellen to flee.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. “That was your...distraction then?”
A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth before disappearing. “Oui. Etienne always told me the best way to fool people is to behave stupidly. It creates confusion. And that it did. I have called you here to ask you for a favor. I’m afraid I have to ask, or else we’ll both find ourselves out-of-work, so to speak. That is, if Xavier Carbon becomes king of my pack.”
